At first sight, Guoxing (國姓), literally meaning “national surname”, might seem a strange name for a township. Less so, however, once you know that “Lord of the National Surname” was an honorary title given by one of the last Ming dynasty emperors to Zheng Cheng-gong (see box below) who, followed by his son and grandson, operated a hold-out based on Taiwan from 1661 until 1683 from which, like Chiang Kai-shek three centuries later, they planned to reconquer the Chinese mainland.
In 1670, eight years after Zheng Cheng-gong had died, Zheng Jing (鄭經; 1642~81), his son and successor, sent Liu Guo-xuan (劉國軒) who had fought with his father and would later be Zheng’s chief military official, to quell Aborigines in the mountainous area of today’s Nantou County.
To this end, he established a temporary camp, which he called Guoxing Plain (國姓埔) in honor of Zheng Cheng-gong. Later, when a village formed in or near this area, the name was re-adopted, though Abe says that until renaming under the Japanese administration in 1920, the township was called Neiguoxing (內國姓; “Inner Guoxing”).
Zheng Cheng-gong (鄭成功; 1624~62) who, as part of his support for the Ming emperor in southeastern China after the Manchurian Qing dynasty had been established in Peking and the north, ended up fleeing to Taiwan and, in the process, ousting the Dutch from their four-decade old colony. His name appears frequently in these pages, though not usually as Zheng Cheng-gong, which is how most Taiwanese refer to him, nor Zheng Sen (鄭森), which was his birth name, but as Koxinga, which is how he was known to the Dutch and, subsequently, traditionally in the West.
Zheng’s father, the merchant, pirate and military leader Zheng Zhi-long (鄭芝龍), controlled lands around Fuzhou in Fujian Province, and in 1645 provided a safe place for the new Longwu Emperor (隆武) to establish his throne. Zheng Sen, meanwhile, led Ming loyalist forces against the Qing to the north. For this the emperor gave him the name Cheng-gong (成功; “Success”) and the title Guo-xing Ye (國姓爺; Kok-seng-ia in Hoklo; meanng “Lord of the Imperial Surname”), usually romanized as Koxinga.
Sticky Rice Bridge (糯米橋) at Guoxing Township
In order to improve transportation between its airfields at Puli and Dongshi, the Japanese colonial military constructed a road through mountainous terrain which, when encountering Beigang River (北港溪) in Guoxing Township, in 1940~41 included replacement of an earlier wooden bridge with one of masonry. Traditional local building techniques were used, such as mortar composed of lime, sugar and glutinous rice. This led to the nickname of the Sticky Rice Bridge, which is now officially an alternative to the Beigang River Stone Bridge (北港溪石橋).
Copyright Jiyue Publications, 2021
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